Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
After Joe Kelly blew his third game of the season, leading to team’s third loss of the season to start the series against the Cardinals, the Dodgers finally lost a game that wasn’t a result of him screwing up, dropping the second game of a four-game set by a score of 4-0.
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But nobody gives a shit because oh my god Marcell Ozuna.
Like everybody else, Kenley Jansen was amused.
An all-timer.
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Does the rest matter? No, but I’ll do it anyway.
Dakota Hudson started for the Cards and didn’t make it through five innings. Normally this would be a positive thing, but the Dodgers offense resembled last year’s unit tonight.
A rally in the 1st of runners at the corners with one out was thwarted with back-to-back strikeouts from AJ Pollock and Max Muncy. After a quiet 2nd, they rallied in the 3rd behind back-to-back one-out walks from Joc Pederson and Justin Turner. That brought up Cody Bellinger, the hottest hitter in the majors, who crushed a liner up the middle but was robbed on a diving stab and resulted in a double play to end the threat.
The bats rallied again in the 4th, putting runners at first and second with one out. But Chris Taylor‘s grounder advanced them a base, Hudson issued an intentional walk to Austin Barnes, and then got out of the jam by striking out Chicken Strip. They loaded the bases in the 5th as well with two outs, but Hudson was removed an out short of the win and Enrique Hernandez struck out to end that threat.
That was about it for the offense, who got seven hits and eight walks, but couldn’t come up with the big hit and struck out 11 times en route to a shutout.
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On the other side of things, Ross Stripling has been effective so far, but there’s been ample reason to worry due to a decline in velocity. That came into play early today, as he gave up a two-out, run-scoring double to Yadier Molina in the 1st on an 88 mph fastball on the inner half.
Strip then surrendered another one to Molina in the 3rd, a two-run, two-out double down the line in a left. He gave up another run in the 5th on a homer by Paul Goldschmidt (of course), leaving with five innings in the book, surrendering four runs on five hits and three walks, though he did strikeout seven.
At least the pen did well, with Caleb Ferguson (1.1 IP), JT Chargois (0.2 IP), and Yimi Garcia (1 IP) providing a final three scoreless frames for the Dodgers.
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The Dodgers fall to 8-4 on the year and will look to salvage the chance at a series split with the Cardinals tomorrow at 1:45 PM HST/4:45 PM PST/7:45 PM EST. Kenta Maeda will need to limit the long-ball and he’ll face off against Jack Flaherty.
